


Make It Out Alive

by deltagravity (aurasoul)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasoul/pseuds/deltagravity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>
<br/><span>Danny and Steve are seeing each other for a while. After Danny gets upset about something--maybe Rachel and Step-Stan are taking Grace on a long vacation elsewhere--he goes to Steve's and finds Steve with Catherine.</span>
<br/></em></p><p><em>Danny decides to get away from things for a while and leaves without telling Steve and with Kono and Chin's firm and relentless backing. Bonus points for people calling Steve out on his crappy treatment of the lovely Catherine. h/c, angst with a resolution</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It Out Alive

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY GOD IT'S THE 24th!? Hahaha, damn. Well this is half-betaed by the lovely [](http://shinysylver.livejournal.com/profile)[**shinysylver**](http://shinysylver.livejournal.com/); we had some scheduling conflicts, unfortunately. My life has done pretty much a 180 towards goodness since I signed up for this, so it was a bit difficult to pin down the angst! I hope you all enjoy it anyway. Thanks for reading :)

Danny Williams struggles to find the words to describe how furious he is. His hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel of his Camaro and he tries not to speed too much. Five-0 status will only get him so many extra miles per hour over the limit without an emergency.

Rachel, the ever-so-lovely woman that she is, has decided to take Grace away for some exotic vacation on her summer break. That's three entire months where he will not be able to see his sweet daughter. It borders on kidnapping, if you ask him. 

Danny realises that he doesn't even know where he is going. He simply got in his car after dropping Grace off and started driving, the anger taking over his sense of direction. Frustrated, he looks around for familiar street signs. 

Of course. 

He's driven himself to Steve's house, without even realising it. Well, he decides, might as well drop in while he's out there. Maybe Steve will be up to something stupid enough to get Danny's mind off of Rachel's crazy decisions. Maybe he’ll be booby-trapping his house to keep out kidnappers. Maybe he’ll be getting kidnapped. Either scenario seems pretty likely to Danny.

Danny stopped knocking at Steve's within weeks of beginning their partnership. Today’s no different, and he wanders into Steve's house without a second thought. 

Danny does not find Steve puttering around the house or kicking back watching TV like he expected him to be doing at this time of night. Instead, Steve is locked in what looks like a passionate embrace with Catherine. 

Everything feels like it’s crashing down. After finally starting to feel at home in this place, after things were starting to be more even-keeled and his life was looking up, Danny is so completely rattled. The thought that Steve could possibly be involved with Catherine, even now, shakes him to the bone. 

Somehow, through the fury that has completely boiled over, Danny manages to exit Steve's home without being noticed. 

He gets back in his car and still has no idea where he's driving.

\-- 

Early the next morning, Chin and Kono find Danny already at the office. He's sitting in the common area, cup of coffee in hand and eyes distant. The cousins exchange glances and Kono loses the non-verbal argument. 

"Howzit, brah," she says. 

Danny barely shrugs in response; he’s not sure if he’s feeling up to spilling his guts right now. 

"That good, huh," Kono pulls up a chair next to the detective while Chin goes to fetch the coffee pot. This morning was definitely going to require more coffee. 

Kono and Chin are obviously not going to let it go, so he had better come up with some explanation for them. Danny realises that the last thing he wants to do is see Steve right now and getting far away from him seems like as good a plan as any. "I think I need to take some time off of Five-0. Maybe I need to go back to Jersey for a bit," he says, still staring into space. 

Chin returns with the carafe of coffee, refilling Danny's coffee mug and offering some to Kono. "And what happened to prompt this?" he asks. 

Steve happened, Danny thinks while accepting the refill. Steve happened and Steve cheated on him. 

"Steve fucked up," says Kono. "Didn't he?" 

Her statement causes Danny to jolt up and away from her a little bit. He meets Kono's eyes and she's smirking a bit at her detective work. Danny is a bit incredulous and at a loss for words. "Damn, Kono. You're becoming a better detective than I imagine anyone thought possible," he says. 

Kono grins a little wider, but raises her hand to pat Danny sympathetically on the shoulder. "I figured something was up between you two. No two straight men should ever bicker that much." 

Danny sighs and buries his head in his hands. "It's just too much, too close, too fast..." He trails off. "I saw him. With Catherine. They looked... Intimate." 

"Danny," Chin says after a moment of consideration. "When was the last time you took a vacation?" 

Five-0 had been around for nearly a year now and Danny couldn't think of a single entire week he'd taken off. Most of the time it wasn't worth it because Grace was in school anyway. He wouldn't have had anything else to do. Now seemed like as good a time as any to leave for a bit. It was nearly his mother's birthday after all and he hadn't seen much of his family since moving to Hawaii, with the exception of Matt's disastrous visit. 

"Seriously, brah. Go home for a bit, we've got nothing on the table," says Kono. 

Danny raises an eyebrow at her. "Gee, thanks boss." Despite his jest, he’s glad for Chin and Kono’s support. 

Chin chuckles a bit. "We'll deal with Steve." 

And that is how Danny finds himself on a plane to Newark the next day. 

\-- 

Home is exactly what Danny had hoped for. His mother, recently retired, had taken up a hundred different hobbies and spent the first day he was there gleefully showing him all of her creations. He was most excited about the baking, though he'd surely pay for that later. Nothing fixes a broken heart quite like Mom's chocolate chip cookies.

The second night in Jersey is his mother's birthday. All of the family gathers to celebrate, and needless to say, Danny's family is excited to see him. Everyone spends a good portion of the evening harassing him about not visiting, and now that he is visiting, for not bringing Grace. 

After a while, it feels too overwhelming for him, and Danny escapes to the den for a respite from all of the attention. He hadn't told his family about Steve in the first place, and now it felt so much harder to lie and say that he hadn't met anyone special. 

"Danny," calls a voice. It’s his sister Marie. "Are you hiding out in here?" Her tone sounds accusing. He only looks at her guiltily and shrugs. Hands on her hips, Marie glares at him and Danny regrets that he had never been good at hiding his feelings. 

Danny looks up at his little sister and knew that she wasn't going to leave without getting his sob story out of him, much like Chin and Kono. He sighs and gesturs for her to sit down across from him. "Might as well take a seat, you're not going to let it go anyway," he says. 

Marie sits and waits expectantly. 

"I met a guy," Danny starts, not looking at her. "My partner, Steve." 

The story unfolds from there, how tense moment after tense moment on the job and off eventually culminated in a fistfight that dissolved into a frantic make out session. How he essentially moved in after that and how things had moved too fast but had been sitting at some weird plateau, neither of them willing to take the relationship to the next level, whatever that meant. Things had been tense, it was true. They weren't official and hadn't told anyone that they'd been sleeping together; the secret had begun to take a toll on Danny and Steve. 

He explains about how Rachel had been good with sharing Grace until her recent decision to take her away for an extended vacation. He explains how he found himself at Steve's and how he found Steve and Catherine there. 

Danny hangs his head, staring intently at his feet.

"I didn't expect it to hurt this much, y'know," he admits. "It just felt so fun and so free. I didn't realise I was in this deep until... that." 

Marie reaches out to wrap her hand around her brother's. "So you love him," she says. 

He sighs. "Yeah, I did. I do. I don't know." Danny is frustrated at his inability to sort out his feelings.

She smiles sweetly. "From what I hear, he's pretty great. Maybe it wasn't what you thought it was." 

Danny raises an eyebrow at that. It hadn't looked like Steve and Catherine could have been anything other than about to hook up. But maybe Marie is right, and maybe it there is some explanation for it other than the obvious. He hopes that is the case. 

Marie pats his knee. "We have to go back to the party, Danny. Mom's birthday is no time to be wallowing in heartbreak," she says. 

It feels better just having all of that off his chest, though there is still a Steve-shaped hole in his heart. He missed his sisters more than he wanted to admit and steeling himself, Danny follows Marie back out to the party. 

\--- 

The third day he is in Jersey, he is helping to clean the party aftermath when there is a knock at the door. 

Danny's mother opens the door for the mysterious guest and Steve McGarrett's hulking form darkens the Williams doorstep. 

"Mrs. Williams," he says. "I'm looking for Danny." 

She turns around to let Danny know that the guest is here to see him, but only sees his back leaving the family room and heading up the stairs to his room. "Something tells me that he doesn't want to see you," she says, turning back. "I take it you're Steve. He talks about you a lot, but then tends to look sad afterwards. I'd bet you have some apologizing to do." 

Of course Danny's mom is perceptive, Steve thinks. He had to have gotten it from one of his parents. "I have a lot of apologizing to do. Can I come in?" 

Mrs. Williams invites Steve in, and offers him some coffee. They sit in the kitchen, having decided to let Danny come down when he was ready. 

\-- 

Danny should have known that Steve would follow him to the East Coast. That stubborn lunkhead wouldn't just let him have his time to get over what is surely going to be the end of their relationship and had to insinuate himself into Danny's mourning period. 

He can’t decide if he wants to see Steve or not. On one hand, he had missed him. On the other, he was still very mad. Steve could wait, Danny decides. He needs to figure out how he feels and what he wants to do about this whole mess.

The words were never really exchanged, but Danny’s pretty sure that he loves Steve and that he loves him back. It’s apparent in the way Steve looks at him and the way he acts around him, however, recent events seemed to throw a bit of a wrench in that theory. 

Danny sighs and curls in on himself a little because he just wants to wallow here and leave Steve to rot or, if he’s honest with himself, pull out some grand romantic gesture to show that he’s committed. 

\--

It's nearly an hour later when a soft knock sounds at the door to Danny's room. He's still sulking, feeling so much that he can hardly figure out where one thought ends and the next begins. The door opens without his invitation, anyway. 

Steve moves into the room and kneels in front of Danny where he sits on the edge of the bed. Danny tries not to look directly at Steve, knowing that he would be looking for forgiveness that he's not quite willing to give out yet. 

"So, Kono got pretty mad at me when I got to the office after you left," says Steve. "She said, ‘Steve, its bad enough that you were cheating on Danny, but Catherine’s one of your oldest friends. She deserved to know that you are involved with someone else now.’ ” 

Danny snorts.

“I wasn’t, you know,” Steve pauses. “Cheating on you. She was in town, we got drunk. Before I had a chance to explain that I was with you, she came on to me. I put a stop to it pretty quickly.” He trails off. 

Danny looks up at Steve, and finds him looking guilty. “Not quickly enough,” he accuses. “It looked like you were right there with her when I saw you.” 

Steve reaches for Danny's hands but they’re batted away. He pulls a little farther from Danny, against his desire to comfort with touch. It's obviously not what Danny needs right now. "There... May have been a moment where I was shocked into going along with her. Danny, I'm sorry. Ok?"

Narrowing his eyes, Danny crosses his arms. "No, it's not okay Steve. It's not just this, and you know that," he says, arms flailing.

"I know. What do you want to do?" He's pouting a bit as he waits for Danny to come up with an answer.

He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He knew that something needed to change but didn't know what, exactly. He shrugs at Steve, looking deeply into his eyes.

Steve gets up and sits next to Danny, pulling him into a hug. "Fuck, Danny... When you left, it hurt. I don't want you to leave."

"I don't want to leave either," Danny says. "Can we promise to at least work on our relationship? God, that makes me sound like a girl," he laughs, and hugs Steve back.

"Of course. I guess we can start with admitting we have a relationship. Maybe tell some people."

"I'm not sure there's anyone left who hasn't already figured it out."

Steve and Danny both laugh at that.

The next day, they are on a plane back to Hawaii.

\---  
 _Was I mistaken, to let you get to me  
I'm overtaken in ways I've never known  
So please don't break me, we've still got a ways to go  
We're still holding on, just hoping for the best  
We may not make it out alive  
_Hanson - Make It Out Alive


End file.
